On Wed, Jun 12, 2002 at 09:56:13PM -0700, Ben Pfaff wrote: > If the original image is an XCF that takes advantage of features, > like layers, that PNG does not support, then sure I'd ideally > want the original XCF if I was going to modify the icons. > Similarly, some documents have features that get lost in > translation from one format to another. If the original is in > Texinfo and I only get a version in HTML, then there's going to > be information lost. Less drastically, I'm sure there are > features in each of, say, DocBook, Texinfo, and LaTeX that are > not present in the other two formats, so that for modification > the original format is preferred. > > I like the way the GPL defines source: "preferred form of the > work for making modifications to it". I sympathize with Joe's position to some extent, but I agree with Colin and Ben. Moreoever, it's far too easy to abuse this latitude. Just because a format is "open" doesn't mean it can't be obfuscated. Take, for example, the binary-only firmware in some Linux kernel modules. I don't know how they're licensed, exactly, but even if they're licensed under MIT/X11 terms that's not good enough for practical purposes. Machine code may be an "open" format but it's too hard to work with. Assembly language isn't, if it was written in that form, especially since assembly tends to be very heavily documented (otherwise, the programmer gets lost). But what optimizing compilers, especially for modern processors, do is like obfuscated perl to the human mind. At least for mundanes like me. :) -- G. Branden Robinson | Convictions are more dangerous Debian GNU/Linux | enemies of truth than lies. branden@debian.org | -- Friedrich Nietzsche http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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